Cinema's two perfect sequels: Bad Boys II and Before Sunset

Looking through the 120-ish DVDs that make up my not entirely representative collection, I noticed a small but revealing trend. Among all the romcoms, the many comedies, the occasional subtitled French movie, the smattering of action films, the determined sprinkling of serious drama, and the still-untouched telly box sets, I saw something I’d never really detected before – I own only two sequels.

The first is Before Sunset, the second part in the story of the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the French Céline (Julie Delpy), who met on a train almost a decade earlier. Older generations have Brief Encounter – my generation has Before Sunrise. Let me parse the premise of the film for the unfortunate: Jesse meets Céline on a train somewhere in Europe, they have a chat – about books, family, ghosts, the US, France – and decide to spend a single day together. Ten years later, that little indie romance spawned a catch-up film in which we met up with our two leads again.

The result was even better than the original. Delpy and Hawke co-wrote the film with its director, Richard Linklater, resulting in a movie that wears its authenticity very lightly: is this Delpy talking about the state of the world, or Céline? And when Jesse talks about his marriage, are there shades of Hawke somewhere in the anguished utterings? Time had clearly taken its toll on our once young and carefree duo and the ex-lovers discuss their lives using real world language: life outside the movies is often a series of missed opportunities anyway, and the film manages to convey that most human of urges: hope, against even the steepest odds. Like its predecessor, the plot is almost nonexistent, but what matters here, almost literally, is the journey. It’s beautiful to see.

Viewers often admit to wanting to “know what happened when the cameras stopped rolling” and in their purest form sequels answer those questions. But as well as picking up where the last film dropped off, sequels must do two other things: take the story forward, and perhaps more importantly, make us care. Franchises, a staple of Hollywood in recent years, are not especially hard to make – the argument seems to be “if it’s been successful once before, we can reanimate that barely breathing horse one more time if we have to”. Often it is clear that content and quality are secondary concerns. If in doubt, put in some flashy CGI, or make it 3D. All this is to say a simple truth, not usually acknowledged – sequels are hard to pull off.

It’s curious that we most associate sequels with films, when the reality is that they are a staple of television. This summer has already seen the (US) season finales of several programmes, from The Good Wife and New Girl, to Parks and Recreation and Revenge. The differing quality in the four examples mentioned all add up to this take-home wisdom: in life, follow-up is hard – just ask any single parent struggling unexpectedly alone, or a newspaper columnist scrabbling for an original idea for a column.

Ideas must be fleshed out, worthy of exploration and then almost flawlessly executed. The pressure to deliver is strong, and the possibility for failure unfairly high. Sophomore efforts are raked over with a hawkeye – they reconfirm genius (Parks and Recreation) or show up weaknesses (Revenge), and we pop-culture fans need to have the “statistics” on this at our fingertips.

At the top I mentioned I own two sequels. The second is Bad Boys II. Wait – come back! I know it’s a brainless action film helmed by Michael Bay, but it delivers in every way possible: we pick up where we left off, a friendship between two maverick police partners, solving crime with a side order of wisecracks and mega-explosions; we have character development in spades – Marcus’s family has grown, overcoming the unhappy patch in the original, and Mike is looking to settle down, which is all well and good, except it’s with his partner’s sister, which causes a schism in the partnership.

Why do we care, still? Because drugs are coming into their city and that’s A Bad Thing. It’s a winner in every department. In fact, you could argue that in many ways, Bad Boys II is the perfect sequel. Alongside Before Sunset, of course.

Leader: The unresolved Eurozone crisis

The eurozone crisis was never resolved. It was merely conveniently forgotten. The vote for Brexit, the terrible war in Syria and Donald Trump’s election as US president all distracted from the single currency’s woes. Yet its contradictions endure, a permanent threat to continental European stability and the future cohesion of the European Union.

The resignation of the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, following defeat in a constitutional referendum on 4 December, was the moment at which some believed that Europe would be overwhelmed. Among the champions of the No campaign were the anti-euro Five Star Movement (which has led in some recent opinion polls) and the separatist Lega Nord. Opponents of the EU, such as Nigel Farage, hailed the result as a rejection of the single currency.

An Italian exit, if not unthinkable, is far from inevitable, however. The No campaign comprised not only Eurosceptics but pro-Europeans such as the former prime minister Mario Monti and members of Mr Renzi’s liberal-centrist Democratic Party. Few voters treated the referendum as a judgement on the monetary union.

To achieve withdrawal from the euro, the populist Five Star Movement would need first to form a government (no easy task under Italy’s complex multiparty system), then amend the constitution to allow a public vote on Italy’s membership of the currency. Opinion polls continue to show a majority opposed to the return of the lira.

But Europe faces far more immediate dangers. Italy’s fragile banking system has been imperilled by the referendum result and the accompanying fall in investor confidence. In the absence of state aid, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, could soon face ruin. Italy’s national debt stands at 132 per cent of GDP, severely limiting its firepower, and its financial sector has amassed $360bn of bad loans. The risk is of a new financial crisis that spreads across the eurozone.

EU leaders’ record to date does not encourage optimism. Seven years after the Greek crisis began, the German government is continuing to advocate the failed path of austerity. On 4 December, Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, declared that Greece must choose between unpopular “structural reforms” (a euphemism for austerity) or withdrawal from the euro. He insisted that debt relief “would not help” the immiserated country.

Yet the argument that austerity is unsustainable is now heard far beyond the Syriza government. The International Monetary Fund is among those that have demanded “unconditional” debt relief. Under the current bailout terms, Greece’s interest payments on its debt (roughly €330bn) will continually rise, consuming 60 per cent of its budget by 2060. The IMF has rightly proposed an extended repayment period and a fixed interest rate of 1.5 per cent. Faced with German intransigence, it is refusing to provide further funding.

Ever since the European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, declared in 2012 that he was prepared to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the single currency, EU member states have relied on monetary policy to contain the crisis. This complacent approach could unravel. From the euro’s inception, economists have warned of the dangers of a monetary union that is unmatched by fiscal and political union. The UK, partly for these reasons, wisely rejected membership, but other states have been condemned to stagnation. As Felix Martin writes on page 15, “Italy today is worse off than it was not just in 2007, but in 1997. National output per head has stagnated for 20 years – an astonishing . . . statistic.”

Germany’s refusal to support demand (having benefited from a fixed exchange rate) undermined the principles of European solidarity and shared prosperity. German unemployment has fallen to 4.1 per cent, the lowest level since 1981, but joblessness is at 23.4 per cent in Greece, 19 per cent in Spain and 11.6 per cent in Italy. The youngest have suffered most. Youth unemployment is 46.5 per cent in Greece, 42.6 per cent in Spain and 36.4 per cent in Italy. No social model should tolerate such waste.

“If the euro fails, then Europe fails,” the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has often asserted. Yet it does not follow that Europe will succeed if the euro survives. The continent that once aspired to be a rival superpower to the US is now a byword for decline, and ethnic nationalism and right-wing populism are thriving. In these circumstances, the surprise has been not voters’ intemperance, but their patience.